Video: How to Record a Guitar Amp with One Microphone

All of you home studio owners ask us about how to get great guitar amp recording with the least amount of mics possible–and we understand, you may have a limited mic collection or inputs on your interface. Have no fear, you can get a great guitar amp recording just using one SM57.

Grammy award winning recording engineer, Steve Lamm, likes to move the microphone around the speaker cabinet to hear how the different mic positions affect the sound being picked up. From pointing a mic directly at the center of the speaker cone to pointing it off-axis towards the edge at a distance, he experiments with microphone placement to get the sound he wants. As they say in the studio business when it comes to mic placement: there’s no right answer, if it sounds good it is good.

Yes guitar amp plugins are getting pretty good these days, but nothing beats the sound of a great guitar part through a great amp in a great room. And if you’re interested in re-amping a guitar part this step-by-step re-amping video shows you how.

Knowing Your Guitar Amp

It’s also important to remember: if you have more than one speaker in your cabinet, be sure to put your ear near each speaker (but don’t blow out your ears!) to see which speaker sounds best to you. If it sounds best to your ear, it’s going to sound best to the microphone. Of course, if you have it cranked at high volumes, have a friend wearing ear plugs move the microphone around which you listen through your monitors.